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For my second experimental shoot I am going to again use a ‘band’ made up of people from my college class, but this time I will do it in a location setting. In this shoot I will be experimenting with different compositions and also I will be working out which background suit my ‘band’, I will learn from this experiment when photographing my final shoot because I will know what composition and poses my band should do and what will look the best and most professional.

For my shoot I will need:

camera (Nikon d810)

3 people

This will be a simple shoot, to do it I will take my ‘band’ and we will find some locations to shoot some group portraits. As I am limited to Harlow Town center for this shoot I will only be able to choose a few location for my shoot, such as a forest/field area, a car park and possibly in front of a old looking building; this will create dramatic effect. For my shoot my ISO will depend on what kind of day it is; if it is a sunny say the ISO could be as low as 100 or if it is a cloudy, dark day, the ISO could be higher. My camera will also need a fast shutter speed so the images come out sharp with no blur (e.g. 1/125). The aperture will also depend on the weather but I will probably set it to about f/8 to begin with and play around with it if it needs changing. For this shoot I have researched many location band shoots, some of which have inspired the idea for this shoot, here is an example of some of the work that has inspired me.

For this shoot I would like to experiment with lighting in the studio. To do this I will use some members of my college class to create a ‘band’, and then I will use the studio to photograph them experimenting with lighting. I will also try and experiment with editing; through my research I have found that black and white images are popular in band photography so I will also try and experiment with that.

To do my shoot I will need:

camera (Nikon d810)

black background

studio lights

3 people

sync lead

To do this shoot I am going to use a studio. First of all I will experiment with different types of studio lighting. I am going to use studio lights to create shadows on my ‘band’ and make the lighting quite dark so it looks dramatic, especially as it is on a black background. I am going to use a sync lead and plug it into my camera to ensure the flashing lights are in time with my shoot. To ensure I get the best photographs I will have to turn the ISO to about 100 so the images do not come over exposed. I will also use a high shutter speed to ensure that there is no blurring in my images, they should look sharp. The aperture of my camera will be set to about f/8, but if when I get to the studio and this set up doesn’t work, I will have to experiment with my settings. After I have set up my camera, I will then ask my models to pose as if they were in a band, I have done extensive research on different band shoots to see which poses work best so I will give my models some direction it what I would like them to do. Here are some examples of band shoots that have inspired me for this particular shoot:

Progress and Achievement – So far for this project I have researched into job roles within different genres of photography and written up two detailed career profiles that I would consider going in to. I have also analysed a range of photography briefs that have been given to professional photographers to explain the details of photography jobs that they have been given, these included a shoot for a magazine and a brief for a wedding photographer, I then compared these two briefs and decided on how successful they are. I then completed a self reflection to identify the genres and careers that interested my, the creative and technical skills that I have and the requirements of my chosen proffesion.

Project Concept and Rationale – For my project I am going to take a set of six photographs that can be used for a bands album cover. To do this I am going to research into other album covers and get some inspiration to do my own, I am going to do these shoots in both the studio and in a location and I will experiment with different creative ideas to develop the best outcomes. I am doing this because I find that music photography is the most interesting genre of photography to me. I have previously done work with bands in my spare time and I find it the most enjoyable genre. I have also learned some new and creative techniques whilst doing music photography in my spare time so I believe my outcome will benefit due to my experience.

Evaluation and Review – I am doing this project at Level 3 and it is worth in total 30 credits, It will be marked as either a pass, merit or distinction. This project counts as two units (unit 8 and unit 9). Unit 8 is focused on developing an art and design project, whilst unit 9 is assessing opportunities for progression in art and design. Hopefully, by the end of unit 8 I would have learned to understand the requirements of an art and design project, be able to complete an art and design project and to be able evaluate an art and design project, and by the end of unit 9 I will learn to understand progression opportunities within art and design, understand communication skills for art and design and to understand presentation skills for art and design.

In this session, we were experimenting with editing an image on Photoshop. The image we were given was a portrait of a girl. There are many different ways of editing an image on Photoshop. it can done simply (e.g. just turning the image into black and white or putting a filter on it), or it can take a vast amount of time and be quite complicated. The idea for the edit we did today was to turn a simple portrait into something that would be put into a magazine; to do this we got rid her imperfections and made her look more suitable for a magazine/blog. Photoshop or other editing tools are used a lot in the magazine industry, especially in the world of fashion.

First of all, to edit the image below I removed her blemishes, (e.g, her spots and moles) to do this, I used the spot healing tool, which is shown in the image below, to work this tool, you have to go over the blemishes and left click and they will hopefully disappear, it is a very simple tool to use. You can also change the brush size and hardness accordingly to the size and darkness of the blemish.

Next, I used the ‘liquify’ tool, which is found in the filters section on the tool bar as you can see in the image below. With this tool, I edited her right eyebrow so it was more even to the left one. To use this tool you have to change the size of the brush accordingly to what part of her face is being adjusted and simply drag it around with your cursor until the desired part of your image has changed to how you would like. Again, it is also a fairly easy tool to use.

After, I edited her eyes to look more blue, to do this I used the dodge tool, as you can see in the image below. After selecting it in the tool bar, I then had to change the size of the brush to the size of the eyes in the image, and then click on the eye until the colour was to my liking.

Then, I used the ‘hue and saturation’ tool to change the colour of the models lips. To do this you have to use the magnetic lasso tool and select round the lips and then I used the ‘hue and saturation’ tool and experimented with the different colours until I was happy.

To make her skin less shiny, and to even out the tone, I used the ‘clone stamp’ tool. To use this, you have to hold down the alt button and select a small patch of skin that you would like to copy, you then click over the blemishes and they should be covered to one even skin tone. However, this tool can be quite difficult to use as the face can become quite patchy, so you have to experiment with the brush size and to turn the opacity to around 20%. This was probably the most difficult editing experiment I did.

Finally, I changed the levels and curves of my image. The levels corrects the colour balance of the image whilst the curves adjusts the tone of the image.

To add something extra to my image, I then edited a pair of glasses on to the image to make it look like the model is wearing glasses. To do this, I firstly had to select an image from google and open it as a separate image on Photoshop and then , I had to again use the ‘magnetic lasso’ tool to get rid of the background of the image and only the frames of the glasses were remaining. Then I dragged the image of the glasses to the image of the model. Next, the size had to be adjusted to fit the model face; to do this, you have to hold down Ctrl+t and then hold down the shift key so the glasses stay in proportion. To make the glasses look as natural as possible I used the eraser tool to trim the edges and make the glasses look more realistic

These are the before and after images:

Overall, I am very happy with the outcome of my edited photograph, because the blemishes are completely gone and I had to learn a lot of new Photoshop techniques in this lesson to complete it. I picked up the techniques very quickly and applied them very well on to the image. I also added my own technique when I edited the models lips with hue and saturation. If I were to improve my final image I would make sure her forehead is more covered and less shiny to make the images even more flawless. I will definitely experiment with more Photoshop techniques in the future as this was a very enjoyable task.

When given the opportunity to create another shoot advertising a project, I thought that I would go in a completely different direction to the previous shoot, also, as it was 3D instead of 2D I thought I could be a bit more creative and abstract with my ideas. After some research I decided to advertise sweets in my photo shoot so I collected some images which gave me some ideas for my photo shoot. First off all I got inspired my the work of Emilie Blincoe as her work was both colourful and could have been used for advertising extremely well, but after some consideration I tried to add a creative spin to her work, so my shoot is inspired by her work but with a different twist.

Here is an example of one of the images I researched that inspired me for my shoot:

I really liked the idea of food hanging up to advertise it as it shows of the food and can also show off the brand. However, as I didn’t have a budget for this shoot I used Sainsburys basic sweet and hung them up using fishing wire. I used to studio for this shoot as again I wanted a plain white background, I chose white because it would compliment the bright colourful sweets in my photographs.

Here is an example of one of the images I photographed in the studio:

Overall I think my shoot was quite successful as the final outcomes came out in great quality and it is quite clear was is being advertised, but I believe my shoot could be improved, for example, the fishing wire could have been edited out to make it seem like the sweets were actually floating. I did have a few difficulties whilst preparing and shooting; the sweets took a lot of time to attach to the fishing wire and when they were attached they easily came off so it was quite a repetitive process. Also when the sweets were hung up on the pole, they kept turning around and would not stay facing forward, which as you can see from my shoot, some of the sweets are not facing the correct way. If I could shoot this again I would take more time to make sure everything was facing the right way and I would also take more time editing it.

For our final outcome of our impossible images unit, we were asked to create an advert using surreal photography. For my final images, I chose to advertise make-up. For my shoot, I took portrait photographs of a couple of my classmates, who were not wearing make-up, and asked them to cover a facial feature with their hands (e.g. mouth, eyes). I did a lot of research when I though of the idea of advertising a make up brand, and I found a lot of examples and different and creative ways of showing off a make up brand using surreal images, for example,

From my research I discovered that makeup advertisement was usually done with a portrait, showing off a prominent feature of the models face, such as their lips or eyes. I based my shoot off this idea. To take these images I set up the studio to have a white background as this would show of my models as they wouldn’t blend in to an abstract background. I chose a white instead of another plain colour because white gives of the illusion of clean, fresh and natural. The lights were then set up to create brightness, although from the images, they were not as bright as a wished. The images I took were only of the models head and shoulders as I believed there would be no point photographing anymore of them as I was only focusing on the makeup on their face.
After, I edited the facial features that each model was covering over their hands, these facial features had heavy make-up on. Here is an example of one of my images:

Overall I believe that the editing side of this image is done very well, the lips are well placed on the face and I believe it is a good way of advertising make-up. If I were to improve the editing of this image, I would probably add some text or a slogan to show even further that this is an image that can be used for advertising. Furthermore, the composition of this image is central which makes the subject image stand out, especially as the lips are in the middle of the canvas. If I were to improve the images, I would ensure that the background is a lot brighter to make the shoot look more professional. I have learnt from, this shoot to prepare my studio space more in advance so I can get the lighting that I had originally planned. When I do my shoot for the 3D images I will take everything into consideration that I learnt from this shoot and I will have a more successful shoot.

Freelance: a photographer who works for themselves, selling your work to anyone who is willing to buy them. They may get temporary assignments from a magazine or a company, for example, for a set fee but after they are free to photograph what the want.

Benefits: freelance photographers can almost always choose there own hours and do the type of work that you enjoy and all the profits they make are their own.

Negatives: include a lot of determination to create a name for themselves and to create a small business, they do not get a set amount of money so it can be risky.

An example of a freelance photographer is Steven McCurry, here is an example of some of his work:

Fixed term contracts: A photographer that is on a fixed term contract will work with a client, such as a magazine or a business and have a short contract whereby they will fulfil what the client wants and then they will stop working with the client.

Benefits:ideal for fulfilling a specific task, allows for accurate budgeting, all the paper work is dealt with so all the photographer needs to do is take the images.

Negatives: Not much opportunity to explore other genres or be creative, you have a deadline so you can’t be flexible and do the project in you own time.

Here is an example of a photography you can get with a fixed term contract:

Permanent contract: a photographer who will work with a client for a long period of time, the photographer will be part of the company or business and produce photography for them doing repetitive work according to what the client wants.

Benefits: set pay checks, the photographer

Negatives: photographer may not be able to expand into other means of photography due to the work being time consuming.

Here is an example of a permanent photography job:

Apprenticeships: a photographer who is both employed and learning the trade at the same time.

Benefits: you learn on the job whilst also being paid, you can also get a qualification and work your way up on the job.

Negatives: you won’t earn as much money as other photography employments, you can’t expand and do your own ideas of photography.